


quite like love

by BadLightning (221BFakerStreet)



Series: One More Time With Feeling [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1920s, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Anxiety Attacks, Credence Barebone Gets a Hug, Credence Barebone Needs a Hug, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gravebone, I am Gravebone trash 5ever, I made it a series, M/M, Mary Lou Barebone is Her Own Warning, Not Beta Read, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Protective Original Percival Graves, no magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-28 23:43:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10841931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221BFakerStreet/pseuds/BadLightning
Summary: They are starting something, but there are strings left trailing; old wounds that need dressing. Underneath all the broken parts, there is hope.Takes place after my story "Soon, He Will". Maybe read that before reading this? Probably makes more sense if you do, but I can't tell you what to do; I'm not your boss.





	quite like love

**Author's Note:**

> I HOPE THIS INSTALLMENT IS OK. I MADE IT A SERIES. I SHOULD BE DOING HOMEWORK HA HA HA.
> 
> Thanks again to the musical stylings of Regina Spektor for the inspiration, specifically the songs Two Birds and One More Time With Feeling.

** quite like love **

i.

He thinks he sees her in a crowd, and that is when he falls apart.

Graves has taken him shopping, an insistence that Credence continually questions him on, until he can see the exasperation writ clear across the older man’s face. Even still, Percival is gentle with him, gently folding his fingers into the sleeve of Credence’s threadbare suit jacket- something that Mary Lou had thrown at him and told him a parishioner had insisted he have it, and that he’d best take care of it or there’d be Hell to pay. There was always Hell to pay with Mary Lou.

They are standing just outside the entrance of a green grocer, the sweet crisp apple in Credence’s hand having barely made it out from the store intact before he was upon it. It is a joy to simply taste a thing, and his heart pulls in shame at how much he enjoys it.

He thinks of Modesty, then, and how much she would enjoy such a treat. He can see her in perfect relief, as he has so many times before: she is probably just now returning with empty hands, if she is lucky, to devour her nightly ration of rapidly cooling gruel. Perhaps when she is sent to bed, she will start making a new toy wand, as she did before. Only this time, Credence will not be there to protect her from Mary Lou’s fury. Nausea pushes slowly at his throat, and his limbs grow cold and heavy until he can no longer feel the heat from Mr. Graves standing so close next to him.

That must have been what did it, he will think later. Conjures her like an imp sprung from hellfire straight from the earth. The old familiar hat bobs like a shark’s fin in-between the thinning flow of shoppers and sight-seers, and he swears he can feel his legs grow roots.

“Credence?” The hand that lands softly on his shoulder breaks his gaze. Half of his apple has rolled into the gutter, but he hasn’t the wherewithal to feel bad for it. Instead, his eyes drift briefly over Graves’ worried expression and then back to the sea of people beyond. She is gone now, at least from here. He is white knuckled, hands gripping at Percival’s forearms.

“I thought,” he starts, and has to close his eyes and breathe through the panic filling his lungs. “I thought I saw… her.”

He is pulled into a hug, melting into his friend’s arms with a practiced ease that he can scarcely believe. Ignoring the curious looks they receive, Percival leads them home at a steady pace.

That night, they stay up late beside the crackling hearth, Credence with a book in his hand that he spares a glance every now and then. Percival sits with a book of his own, and a glass of whiskey. And if they each spend a bit more time looking at each other than at their respective books, neither one of them makes mention of it.

 

ii.

Mr. Graves has been home from the bank where he works for nearly an hour when the doorbell of his brownstone rings. Thinking it must be the delivery of his newly tailored clothes, Credence rises to his feet to start toward the door before Percival has even made it out of the kitchen. Having assured Credence that he has only ever been a mediocre cook at his best, he is nonetheless trying to make them a simple meal of shepherd’s pie, a dish his grandmother used to make. Credence had peeked in on him earlier in the evening, only to see the man bent half over his kitchen table, studying an old faded piece of paper with the reverence of a biblical scholar discovering new meaning in the scripture he transcribed. Fingers traced along looping cursive, and for one blasphemous moment Credence had allowed himself the secret imagining of what those fingers might feel like tracing over his own flesh.

He pushes that thought away with effort, blushing as he makes his way to the door. When he opens it, he is frozen to the spot, and so, too, is the woman on the stoop before him.

“M-ma?” His voice is a hushed whisper. Hers is a hurricane.

“Credence!” She moves in to grab him, and he flinches back with his entire being, every bit of him trying to escape her. She pauses, barely, and he wonders at what is stopping her. Nothing stops Mary Lou Barebone; she is single-minded in her righteousness, the invisible hand of God Almighty pressing her ever onward.

He feels the familiar grip of a hand on his shoulder, and tenses further under the calculating gaze of the woman who should have been his mother. He cannot look her in the eye, so he casts his gaze downward, settling on the stack of pamphlets in her hand- the fancy gloves, he notices, for proselytizing the rich and well-off (or at least taking what money they will tithe to relieve them of her presence). ‘ _Idle hands are the devil’s workshop_ ’.

“Credence,” she says again, voice low, a viper in the grass, “I always knew you were wicked, child, but this-” she gestures sharply at him, at _them_ , and he flinches once more.

“Credence,” Percival speaks quietly to him, and his name from those lips sounds like a prayer rather than a curse. “Please check on the potatoes for me; make sure they’re not boiling over.” The older man maneuvers him gently behind him with a soft push toward the hall. It is all Credence can do to shuffle further into the house. The kitchen is closer than his own bedroom, and so he sits and stares at the old paper still splayed on the table, worn with use. He reads the recipe over and over again, until he thinks he could make the dish in his sleep.

He cannot hear the content of the words that Mr. Graves is saying, but he hears their force. The door closes with a crack, and he jumps in his seat. Percival walks into the room and without stopping he kneels in front of Credence. Warm, calloused hands come up to hold his face in such a delicate grip that Credence feels he may break apart from the care of it.

“I’m so sorry, my boy.” There are unshed tears in the low baritone of Percival’s voice, and the thought of such a lovely man crying over him brings his own tears spilling hot down his cheeks. “She won’t be back. Never again.”

He is enveloped then, swept downward and falling into the warmth of something that he imagines feels quite like love.

**Author's Note:**

> I got a tumblr specifically for fanfic stuff. Follow me there for random shit:
> 
> http://221bfakerstreet.tumblr.com/


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